LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND

43

When the Englishman turns to America, he sees a system, and it is one that fills him with surprise, at least, if with no other feeling. Generally he looks only at its more salient features, the relations between the states and the federal government. In England Parliament legislates for the whole kingdom. That body takes upon itself the management of the domestic, the local, the parochial, the municipal affairs of all the communities.

institutions can consult "Local Government," by M. D. Chalmers, in the "English Citizen Series," Macmillan & Co., 1883. This book tells a tale almost incredible of confusion, inefficiency, and waste. "Local government in this country," it says, "may be fitly described as consisting of a chaos of areas, a chaos of authorities, and a chaos of rates," p. 17. "Confusion and extravagance are the characteristic features of the whole system," p. 21. "Local boards are innumerable, many of them are useless, but are kept up merely to supply places and salaries for the officials."-Idem. "The total property in England liable to taxation is estimated to produce a gross rental of £157,000,000. Local expenditures for 1880 amounted to £50,000,000, nearly one third of the rental," pp. 26, 28. "English local affairs are regulated by some 650 acts of Parliament of general application, and several thousand of a special character for particular towns or districts. The latter accumulate at the rate of about sixty a year. In England and Wales are 52 counties, 239 municipal boroughs, 70 Improvement Act districts, 1006 urban sanitary districts, 41 port sanitary authorities, 577 rural sanitary districts, 2051 school-board districts, 424 highway districts, 843 burial-board districts, 649 unions, 194 lighting and watching districts, 14,916 poor-law parishes, 5064 highway parishes, and about 13,000 ecclesiastical parishes. These all overlap and intersect each other, so as to make a perfect tangle of jurisdictions. One farm of 200 acres was, some few years ago, in twelve different parishes, and subject to about fifty different rates," pp. 18, 21. Some districts are governed by twelve, fifteen, or twenty different local authorities, selected at different times, and with different qualifications for the voters. No wonder that every Englishman gives the subject up in despair, as incapable of comprehension.

of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It arranges for every local gas bill, water bill, sewerage bill, and railway bill for the two islands. In America, the Federal Congress legislates only on matters of national concern, everything else is left to the separate states.

But the difference between the two countries goes much deeper than this. The American system is a complete one, reaching down to the foundations, and the foundations are its most important portions. At the bottom lies the township, which divides the whole North and West into an infinity of little republics, each managing its own local affairs. In the old states they differ in area and in their machinery. In the new states of the West they are more regular in size, being generally six miles square. But in all the system is substantially alike. Each township elects its own local officers and manages its own local affairs. Annually, a town meeting is held of all the voters, and suffrage is limited only by citizenship. At these meetings, not only are the local officers elected, such as supervisors, town-clerks, justices of the peace, road-masters, and the like, but money is appropriated for bridges, schools, libraries, and other purposes of a local nature.

Next above the township stands the county, an aggregate of a dozen or so of towns. Its officials, sheriffs, judges, clerks, registers, and other officers to manage county affairs are chosen at the general state election. It also has a local assembly, formed of the town supervisors. They audit accounts, supervise the county institutions, and legislate as to various county matters.

Above the counties again stands the state government, with its legislature, which passes laws relating to state affairs; and finally the federal government, which deals only with national concerns. The whole forins a con

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA

45

sistent and harmonious system, which reminded Matthew Arnold of a well-fitting suit of clothes, loose where it should be loose, and tight where tightness is an advantage.

As we have already noticed, the feature of it all which strikes the Englishman most forcibly is the separation of local from national affairs in the administration of the state and the general government. But the township system, with its more direct local self-government, is of greater importance. Given that, and the rest of the system follows almost as matter of course. Every American is a politician, and feels a keen interest in his presidential and state elections. But, after all, these are generally of much less practical importance to him than the home elections, which determine whether his local affairs shall be wisely, economically, and justly administered. General taxation is a trifle compared with that for his schools, roads, bridges, and other local expenses. It is in the town meeting that the incipient statesman is formed. It is in managing his local affairs that the American acquires the discipline, the self-respect, and self-reliance which enable him, when occasion calls, to command a company, a regiment, or an army, control a railroad or govern a state. When our late war closed, the United States had one of the most efficient armies that ever stood in line of battle. The secret lay in the fact that each man was a drilled and disciplined, but at the same time a thinking, machine. The drill and discipline came from years of service, but the man beneath them came from the school-house and the town meeting.

Now, does any one imagine that the American institutions of local self-government are of English origin? What England is to-day we have faintly outlined. As

to the past, we can pursue the same line of inquiry as was followed in relation to the origin of the free-school system. It was only where the Puritans settled that the township and the town meeting were fully developed. Virginia attempted to copy directly the parishes and vestries, boroughs and guilds, of England. Jefferson said: "These wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their government; and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation." De Tocqueville wrote, over fifty years ago: "The more we descend towards the South, the less active does the business of the township or parish become; the population exercises a less immediate influence on affairs; the power of the elected magistrate is augmented and that of the elections diminished, while the public spirit of the local communities is less awakened and less influential." The system does not appear to be English in its origin. America is an interesting question.

How it came to

We have now passed in review some of the most important of the institutions which to-day are found in the United States and are not found in England. Even if we went no further, he would be a bold man who, after studying their influence upon the national life and character, should still continue to claim that America was only a transplanted England. But, in addition to these peculiar institutions, there are others, now common to both countries, which have exerted a powerful influence in the United States for more than a century, while they have been only recently introduced into England, and in that country are just beginning to bear fruit.

Three of these are of an importance which no one

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

47

will question. They are freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and the secret ballot. The first protects the conscience, the second protects the mind, the third protects the suffrage. Without these guarantees the United States of the nineteenth century seems impossible, and yet for none of them are we indebted to the legislation or to the example of the mother country. In adopting each of them, England has not been the leader, but has followed in the footsteps of America.

First, as to the introduction of religious liberty into the two countries, a few dates tell the whole story. Of the Established Church in England I have already spoken-the Church which exacts a tax from every one, and which is the chief bulwark of the aristocracy. Still, with the exception of this tax, all religious denominations stand to-day in England on a basis of equality before the law, save that a Catholic cannot sit on the throne, nor can he hold the office of Lord Chancellor of England or that of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. But the establishment of this equality is of very recent date. In 1689 a partial Act of Toleration was enacted, but it was not extended to Unitarians until 1813, to Roman Catholics until 1829, and to Jews until 1858. Until such respective dates the members of these proscribed religious bodies were excluded from public office, while it was not until 1871 that all religious tests were abolished in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, so as to open those institutions equally to students of all religious denominations.

The removal of this last restriction, as we shall see hereafter, was nearly a hundred years after religious liberty had been proclaimed in the United States.

Next let us consider the question of the freedom of the press. Of the importance of this subject nothing